Huckabee Stokes Fear With Nazi Gun Control Comparison

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Pastor-politician Mike Huckabee continues to stoke fear and paranoia regarding the sensible gun safety measures proposed in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting that killed 20 children and six adults, the latest gun-related massacre that occurred because of what many consider to be lax gun laws in America, compared to other developed nations.

On his radio show Wednesday afternoon, Huckabee responded to a caller who repeated the lie that Adolf Hitler and the Nazis turned Germany from a democracy into a dictatorship by registering and collecting guns, by saying:

“When you bring that up there are people that get crazy on us. They’ll start saying, ‘oh there you go, comparing to the Nazis.’ And I understand the reaction. But it’s the truth. You cannot take people’s rights away if they are resisting and have the means to resist. But once they’re disarmed and the people who are trying to take over have all the power — not just political, not just financial — but they have the physical power to domesticate us and to subjugate us to their will, there’s not a whole lot we can do about it, other than just plan to die in the course of resistance…in every society and culture where dictators take over, one of the things they have to do is get control of the military and police and ultimately all the citizens and make sure the citizens are disarmed and can’t fight in the streets. Gosh I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Besides making a slippery-slope argument that modest gun reform will somehow lead to weapon confiscation and a Nazi-style dictatorship, Huckabee and the caller display a dangerously ignorant reading of history regarding gun laws in Nazi Germany. Mother Jones, Salon, and other publications have refuted the oft-repeated assertion among gun rights absolutists that gun control allowed Hitler’s rise to power and made the Holocaust possible.

First, it is worth noting that other developed, democratic nations with stronger gun laws, such as Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia and others, did not see a dictator rise to power and “domesticate” and “subjugate” their people when they enacted new gun measures. In fact, their democracies are still intact with the people still deciding important issues peacefully through the ballot box. What these countries have done is made their societies safer by decreasing gun violence.

Now back to the right wing’s seemingly favorite comparison when discussing anything President Obama has proposed to help the American people — Nazis.

The reality is that the Weimar Republic following World War I actually had tougher gun laws than the Nazi regime, in part to disarm the violent extremists causing havoc, like the paramilitary SA brownshirts. The Nazi Weapon Law of 1938 actually loosened gun restrictions, except for Jews and other persecuted minorities.

But there were only 214,000 Jews living in Germany when World War II started and between 160,000 and 180,000 were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators. That is a small fraction of the six million Jews from other countries who were murdered and who wouldn’t have been subject to the Nazi gun laws. The mighty Russian army lost more than 10 million soldiers fighting the Wermacht on the Eastern Front, so it is unrealistic to think that a Jewish armed uprising in Eastern Europe would have beaten back the German military machine. That is why many say a strong Israeli army is so important to preventing another holocaust, the reasoning being that a Jewish state with a modern military is the only match for a genocidal force like the Nazis.

In reality, it is the Tea Party “patriots” intimidating people with loaded assault rifles, Republican efforts to suppress the vote, and right-wing radio hosts like Huckabee stoking fear and paranoia that more closely resemble the tactics used by Hitler’s Nazis to gain power.

Gun control and Second Amendment-analysis website GunCite concludes the following in a story titled “The Myth of Nazi Gun Control”: “There are no lessons about the efficacy of gun control to be learned from the Germany of the first half of [the 20th] century. It is all too easy to forget the seductive allure that fascism presented to all the West, bogged down in economic and social morass. What must be remembered is that the Nazis were master manipulators of popular emotion and sentiment, and were disdainful of people thinking for themselves. There is the danger to which we should pay great heed. Not fanciful stories about Nazis seizing guns.”

94 Responses to Huckabee Stokes Fear With Nazi Gun Control Comparison

Should the Federal Government stop interfering in peoples religion and cultures?
There is no more unified American people. We have been made into multicultural; multi national multi racial Empire. And that is the composition of the Federal Government.
So by what moral authority , except sheer force, does the Federal and State governments to interfere in our cultures, religion, and rearing/educating of our children?
Or who can get work, and who cannot?

I’m missing your point. Would you mind clarifying?
Are you objecting to the government’s support for religion or its interference with religious freedom? Actually, in my opinion the two go hand-in-hand, but I don’t get where you’re coming down on this.

Like the legislators in North Carolina who wanted to make an official state religion. What would that religion be? Mormon? Catholic? I bet it would be Southern Baptist. It just goes to show you what would happen without a separation of church and state.

When you stop taking ANY money from the government, then you can complain! That means no roads, no schools, no nothing from the government! What we need is a government that puts the people first and not themselves!

The Second Amendment was added to the Constitution by the founders because they feared a standing army…which of course we’ve had for a very long time. Refer to Madison’s notes on the Constitutional Convention for further information.

Well, we did have a little undeclared war with France when Britain and other countries in Europe attacked the republic, and the U.S. refused to aid the French. My recollection is that our agreement with them which brought their very important help to our revolution did say we would assist them when they were attacked, but I may be wrong about that.

They feared a foreign standing army, not their own. The point of the amendment is to function as a militia. Read the Second Amendment complete with its punctuation and grammatical sense. It is dishonest to only quote part of it as somehow self-explanatory and self-justifying.

The third Amendment supports your contention, as well as several sections of Article 8 of Section I of the Constitution. There is no question the Founders very much took to heart the real threat of keeping a standing army.

They did not want a standing army. Don’t know if that quite translates to “fear,” but I believe Lynda is essentially correct. Wanting to provide for defense without a standing army, however, is a very long way from the claim that it was for maintaining state militias to resist Federal authority, or – an even more absurd claim of some on the Right – to allow anyone unhappy with the government at any level to form his own “militia” to resist.

The Second Amendment (Amendment II) to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights that protects the right to keep and bear arms. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights.

The right to bear arms predates the Bill of Rights; the Second Amendment was based partially on the right to bear arms in English common-law, and was influenced by the English Bill of Rights of 1689. This right was described by Blackstone as an auxiliary right, supporting the natural rights of self-defense, resistance to oppression, and the civic duty to act in concert in defense of the state. Academic inquiry into the purpose,[1][2] scope,[3] and effect[4] of the amendment has been controversial[5][6][7] and subject to numerous interpretations.[8]

I noticed that when you copied the above text out of Wikipedia that you chose to ignore the part from Wikipedia on a Supreme Court ruling in 2008 which makes it clear that the currently proposed changes to our gun law by Obama are totally consitutional: the 2008 Supreme court ruling includes the decision that: “the right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever, in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” Therefore, according to the Supreme Court’s 2008 rulling, enacting a lawl that restricts the sale of assault weapons, magazines that hold more than 10 rounds and requires background checks is withing the federal and state governments constitutional rights.

Here’s the wording of the Supreme coure ruling you neglected to cut and paste:

In District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment “codified a pre-existing right” and that it “protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home”[9][10] but also stated that “the right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose”. They also clarified that many longstanding prohibitions and restrictions on firearms possession listed by the Court are consistent with the Second Amendment.[11]

Actually, this is historically inaccurate and evidences a failure of the American education system to adequately teach its children their own history. The right to bear arms arose in the context of the need for mutual support, primarily on the frontiers and in an age where the armed forces we take for granted were not yet well developed. There is a reason the right is conditioned by reference to a well-armed militia. The right comes with a responsibility to others. It is not a free-floating individual right that can be exercised without regard to others. But don’t take my word for it. Ask the children of Newtown.

The right to bear arms was not put in place to overthrow our government. Instead of reading the Federalist papers which were initiated by a few who dissented, read all the arguments for and against every part of the Constitution. I think, that if our founding fathers could have seen what is happening now, they would have put safeguards in the second amendment against anti-government whack jobs.

No, it was actually intended to permit state militiae to put down local uprisings (Shay’s Rebellion, e.g.) without having to rely on federal authority and the Continental Army. “Bearing arms” was a term of art in the period; it did not refer to owning weapons generally but to membership in militiae.

Actually, because they did not have a standing army, yet, the founding fathers wanted all the men to be armed in case they had to call on them to defend the colonies. Now, we have well regulated armed forces and national guards.

Huckabee is just spreading an untruth. We have beliefs and then we seek that which reinforces our beliefs. I have made an extensive study of Nazi Germany. The Germans have always had guns. Many of them are hunters. Hitler did not ban guns from the general public. He banned them for Jews and Gypsies. Just as people, in this country, would never believe we would have factions that were oppressed, the Jews did not believe it would happen until it was too late.

I think the problem with both your analysis is that this country is run by corporate interest which dictates just about everything. I will also say that one of our major political parties is more closely aligned to that corporate power, even though the corporations will bet against them as well if it suits their interest. Government is not overbearing, it is the power of corporations that calls the shots.

you are so right about the power coming to rest with the corporations. If they would pay their taxes, like we are required to do, then they would not be so hated. If they did what other people do (corporations are people my friend) then no one would have to worry about the national debt,
r

I sure can’t disagree that over the past 15 years or so, especially since the GOP took over congress in the 1990s, that there has been a decided degredation in our government’s honesty and moral direction. Despite the fact that the GOP does everything it can to sell themselves as Christian, nothing could be further from the truth. And I’m trying to say that the Democrats are saints either – but I see at least some compassion with the Democratic party which is totally devoid in the GOP. And to some degree it started even earlier than that when Reagan was elected. His nonsense notions of trickle-down economics and other practices that focused more on glorifying the rich, started the ball rolling in the wrong direction – down hill.

Yes, and I think the dementia started early on in his first term. It’s absoluely amazing to me that so many Americans seem to have a favorable impression of what could likely be the worst president America has ever had considering the near destruction of America that his failed policies – carried on by clueless legislators and presidents, have created for America over the past 30 years.

That’s the redneck version. The 2nd amendment- doofus- was written at a time that we did not have a standing army- they wanted to be able to get people armed quickly if there was another war- not one against ourselves doofus-
That’s why we have a 2nd amendment- I hope you haven’t reproduced.

No, Huckabee was “just” engaging in right-wing malice, ignorance, and paranoia, qualities you seem to admire.
Your assertion about “the right to bear arms” is likely crap like Huckabee’s BS.
And the overwhelming majority of government “overbearing” – which I agree is serious in many areas – has occurred when the Republicans were getting what they wanted. The Dems are no party of saints, but they have not yet even remotely approached the ignorance, megalomania, paranoia, selfishness, and malice of the “republiCONs,” and constantly maintaining otherwise is not only a lie, but may well become a self-fulfilling one.

For those reading through this comment thread and questioning what thoughts were going through Madison’s head when he wrote the 2nd Amendment, in reading through the Federalist Papers – No. 46, published in on January 29, 1788, Madison appears to be wrestling with concerns expressed by some that were involved in creating the Constitution (as he relates to in the last paragraph -the chimerical fears of the authors of them.) that should the federal government become too strong, it could in fact impose its will upon the indiviudual states even though they may not be receptive to what it is the federal government is asking of them. Allthough this paper confirms that there was concern at the time about the federal government becoming so powerful it could overpower states rights, it’s not clear if it was this concern that prompted Madison to write the 2nd Amendment the way he did (leaving some ambiquity). Here are the last two paragraphs of a rather extensive paper for you to draw your own conclusions:

The argument under the present head may be put into a very concise form,
which appears altogether conclusive. Either the mode in which the federal
government is to be constructed will render it sufficiently dependent on the
people, or it will not. On the first supposition, it will be restrained by that
dependence from forming schemes obnoxious to their constituents. On the other
supposition, it will not possess the confidence of the people, and its schemes
of usurpation will be easily defeated by the State governments, who will be
supported by the people.

On summing up the considerations stated in this and the last paper, they seem
to amount to the most convincing evidence, that the powers proposed to be lodged
in the federal government are as little formidable to those reserved to the
individual States, as they are indispensably necessary to accomplish the
purposes of the Union; and that all those alarms which have been sounded, of a
meditated and consequential annihilation of the State governments, must, on the
most favorable interpretation, be ascribed to the chimerical fears of the
authors of them.

When they were writing the Constitution, there were differences of opinion. There were those who wanted a strong Federal Government and those who wanted the states to have the power. Each had their arguments for what they believed. My own feelings are: We need a strong Federal Government as some of the states have proven they were destructive to the public rights. An example is the lynchings in the Southern States that were legal according to state law. Mark Twain tells in his writings of a man being hung for looking at a white woman and then it was proved that the man was nowhere near the broad at the time of the accusation. They shrugged and said, “Oh well, it was only a n****r and proceeded to hang another one. Mark Twain’s report was accompanied by a picture of the hanging.
The Jim Crow laws tells us the states cannot be trusted. In my own state, we have the Frank Church Wilderness area. We have some other national forests. People have enjoyed these woodlands for years. Mining and logging has tried to circumvent the protections. Right now there is a bill in the state legislature to take the lands out of the federal jurisdiction. With our own representatives being an exercise in stupidity, we need the Federal Government for protection.

And, thus, we live under the Constitution, rather than the Articles of Confederation. While fears for states’ rights were justly held, by the time of the Civil War SOME states’ rights were in question, such as the right to hold slaves as property. While the first ten Amendments we reratified in 1791, it was almost eighty years later that the Amendments freeing the slaves and allowing them the right to vote were ratified, two Amendments that Madison and Jefferson had nothing to do with, but very readily may have supported.

Huckster seems to forget the threat from the real Nazis like the Texas Aryain Brotherhood that is murdering law enforcement officials, police and prosecutors. What about the neo-nazi who murdered the Siks in Milwaukee? There are real Nazis in this country and they are not Obama and the NRA and the idiotic tea party supports these murdering, treasonous criminals.

When Mike Huckabee, and other right wingers, causally accuse anyone they disagree with, of being Nazis, they do two things: First, they unwittingly acknowledge they know nothing about the real Nazis. Second, they level a vile insult to the memory of the millions who died under, and fighting, Hitler. If this was Germany, circa 1936, I think there is a far greater chance that Huckabee would be working for Joseph Goebbels than working for the underground.

No. Sorry I wasn’t more clear. People who are throwing out the words, “Nazi” and “Holocaust” for the sake of their own arguments are insulting the memories of the victims of the Holocaust. I was agreeing with ORAXX.

I don’t know if Huckabee realizes this, but back in the 1940’s the population of Europe was not armed with military weapons or any ones.. The only groups that had them were the military and the police, so a rounding up of segments of the population was easier. No one is going to round up anyone here. There are over 310 million guns here. I’m not going to say we are a bunch of paranoids bordering on other bipolar diseases but please gimmie a break with this ridiculous talk.

If Huckabee sounds a little preachy, it’s most likely because ya’ll ain’t
been trained in Arkansas Schools, on the real American history, Southern Style.
Where ol’ Betsy is your best guarantee of gettin, and keepin, ever one of those
Constitutional Rights Warshington, and Jefferson, and all them Founders seen
fit to hand down to us to protect. Especially from the Yankees and other dictator
types, that would like nothin better, than to catch the South short on ammunition
again!

Huckabee is a stupid redneck- he lost some weight and thought that made him normal- not even close- then he chose not to run for president because Fox was paying him a shitload of money. Glad that “minister” has his priorities straight- for a tea bagger.

Hitler took over by a combination of storm troopers (illegal under any reasonable country’s laws) who were armed because there was NO gun control under the Weimar Republic and being ELECTED by voters fed hatred by his party, similar to what the right wing in America today is feeding voters.

After he took over, he banned MINORITIES such as Jews and Gypsies from having guns, and encouraged even MORE “pure Aryan” Germans to have them both as personal weapons and in the armed forces and police agencies.

As for “confiscation through registration”, after 100+ years, has any federal, state, or local government tried to confiscate all motor vehicles?

The republicans don’t know any better. They live for making people fearful. So let’s go over what they have called our President. He is a Nazi, a communist, a king, a marxist, a facist, a racist, he’s a Muslim and the Anti-Christ. If I have forgotten any, I’m sorry. President Obama has to be the most conflicted person in the world if he is all that. The biggest fear of all is that he is coming to take away all our guns. Not possible. Handguns are never going away. Nor are shotguns or rifles. Automatic & semi-automatic guns belong in the military. The next thing is, he’s coming to take away our bullets. Not going to happen. The only thing he wants is to limit the number of bullets in a clip to 10. No mention of bullets in the 2nd ammendment. Not only will congress not bring these 2 up for a vote, they won’t bring up background checks or straw purchases. Explain that member of congress, how can you not even bring up a vote on straw purchases. Those 2 fire fighters who were killed on Christmas Eve were killed by a man who knew he couldn’t purchase a gun. Therefore he got someone to buy the gun for him. Do you know what happened to the person who bought the gun. Nothing. In some states it is only a minimal fine. Don’t you think they should be charged with aiding & abetting?

For the right-wing lunatics in the GOP, truth and science are subjective and always conform to their personal beliefs. Don’t like science that disproves the Bible? Deny it. Can’t find history that can be reinforces their arguments? Fabricate it. See how easy it is to defend your positions when take that approach?